The H.264 Debacle: We’re Complaining to the Wrong People

A lot of articles lately have been focused on why Apple and Microsoft are the bad guys by supporting H.264 and not Theora. Well, yes, they are bad guys, but there really is not much point whining to them. It will in all likelihood fall on deaf ears, simply because they are acting in their own best interests–as MPEG stakeholders and commercial, DRM-encouraging, royalty-loving, proprietary-operating-system-hawking corporations. But that could all change–if the HTML5 spec didn’t allow H.264.

Think about it. We can spend our time whining on and on to these commercial vendors, or we can cut to the chase and try to get the HTML5 spec fixed–in which case the commercial vendors would have to fix their implementations in order to be considered compliant. And the thing is, it is actually a lot easier to make a case to the W3C than it is to Apple or MS, because they are actually supposed to have the interests of the open web at heart.

The fact is, the W3C is violating its own principles by allowing H.264 to infiltrate its way into the next HTML spec.

Web for All: The social value of the Web is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C’s primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.”

Hmm, whatever their software, eh? Even if the users refuse to use royalty-encumbered software (i.e., they use open source software, like Firefox)?

Web of Consumers and Authors: The Web was invented as a communications tool intended to allow anyone, anywhere to share information. For many years, the Web was a “read-only” tool for many. Blogs and wikis brought more authors to the Web, and social networking emerged from the flourishing market for content and personalized Web experiences. W3C standards have supported this evolution thanks to strong architecture and design principles.”

Allow anyone, anywhere to share video information, really? Because it sure doesn’t seem like that is a primary goal, when the specification allows such patent-encumbered formats that most authors can’t figure out for themselves whether they are violating the licensing or not, and when the authors are at the mercy of the MPEG-LA as to whether they might be hit up for cash down the road.

I think I’ve made it pretty clear: by supporting H.264, the W3C is acting in the most hypocritical way possible. They say they are for a web that is browser and OS-agnostic, yet support a format that is hostile to open-source software. They say they are for a read-write web, yet support a format with licensing terms that raise the costs of and complicate the process of publishing videos.

The HTML specification, like the rest of the specifications that make up the web, is supposed to be royalty-free. Why then, is a key part of it not? Let’s speak up and let the W3C know that we aren’t going to tolerate its indecisive stance any longer. It needs to stand up for its principles and remove H.264 from the HTML5 spec once and for all.

87 Comments

“The fact is, the W3C is violating its own principles by allowing H.264 to infiltrate its way into the next HTML spec.”

So then the W3C should take a totalitarian approach and not allow non patent encumbered video codecs from being able to be used in HTML? Thats insane. The fact is we are not going to have a completely open world nor are we going to have a completely closed world. It doesn’t ahve to be all or nothing. And even though this is likely going ot make me terribly unpopular I LIKE that H.264 is usable in HTML5. But I don’t want to only be able to use that, and as it is were not locked into that. Just because IE9 will be doesn’t mean the rest of the world will. IE makes up less than (or about) 60% of the total brower population, so thats 40% that won’t even notice a lock in because it won’t aply (i dont know if Safari will limit or not at this point so I am assuming they could have multiple codecs still).

40% of the web surfing world makes up well over the entire Linux user base world world wide! So already we have windows users who wont be locked in rigth off the bat. from the perspective of the industry and of the companies suporting H.264 it makes a lot of sense to use it. They know where the patents are, the odds of it getting hit by some random law suite are very small, and its got great compression and preformance.

at the end of the day while it might not be the best thing for EVERYONE, it is a good thing for most of most, and thats more than other sollutions at this point.

keep in mind all this is not set in stone, if and when another format makes sense to the companies that would be supporting it, you bet they will do it if demand is high enough (excpet apple, they don’t give a damn what you think or want).

for now though, we wait and see how this plays out. I for one am not all that worried, the world keeps on spinning…

No. It should mandate Ogg Theora *at least* and allow any other support each vendor wishes to include. To be HTML5 compliant the user agent MUST support Theora and MAY support other codecs. That’s simple and not harmful.

“The fact is, the W3C is violating its own principles by allowing H.264 to infiltrate its way into the next HTML spec.”

So then the W3C should take a totalitarian approach and not allow non patent encumbered video codecs from being able to be used in HTML? Thats insane. The fact is we are not going to have a completely open world nor are we going to have a completely closed world. It doesn’t ahve to be all or nothing. And even though this is likely going ot make me terribly unpopular I LIKE that H.264 is usable in HTML5. But I don’t want to only be able to use that, and as it is were not locked into that. Just because IE9 will be doesn’t mean the rest of the world will. IE makes up less than (or about) 60% of the total brower population, so thats 40% that won’t even notice a lock in because it won’t aply (i dont know if Safari will limit or not at this point so I am assuming they could have multiple codecs still).

Firefox and Opera on Windows could always hook into Media Foundation and use the built in h264 decoder, and on *NIX hook into gstreamer and leave it up to the end user to download and install the gstream plugin – after all, they’ve been doing it for years when ripping cds, playing mp3s and so forth. Just include a friendly note that ‘xyz uses gstreamer, ensure that the h264 plugin is installed”. So I can’t work out what the moaning and groaning actually is about. Those not using Safari or Internet Explorer can still be supported – if Firefox and Opera developers refuse to use the built in operating system technologies then it is hardly the fault of Apple or Microsoft.

Regarding ‘non patent encumbered CODEC’s’ and their advocates; Theora as some people try to claim is immune to patent claims – MPEG-LA already have openly stated they’re already getting the wagons ready to circle Theora and its supporters. There is no such thing as a ‘non patent encumbered’ anything because as soon as you start getting beyond the absolute basic you’re walking into areas patented. Do I hate such a situation? yes but I blame the game not the players, and the inept organisation that should be writing the rules (government) and the idiots who vote them in.

Regarding ‘non patent encumbered CODEC’s’ and their advocates; Theora as some people try to claim is immune to patent claims – MPEG-LA already have openly stated they’re already getting the wagons ready to circle Theora and its supporters.

This is generally ignored – for the simple reason that such claims exist for 10 years or so (Vorbis, then Theora).

10 years of “We know a patent you infringe” kind of threats.

10 years of no action.

This is getting interesting once they put up a list of patents that infringe or file a lawsuit.

Firefox and Opera aren’t the only ones doing something stupid and limiting the browser to only one codec. MIcrosoft, with IE9, is doing it too. They’ve already said so, it will be H.264 *only*. They are not using their own APIs, something that is rather typical for them actually. Even Apple, the horrible controlling Apple, didn’t do something *that* stupid.

Regarding ‘non patent encumbered CODEC’s’ and their advocates; Theora as some people try to claim is immune to patent claims – MPEG-LA already have openly stated they’re already getting the wagons ready to circle Theora and its supporters.

I said that the codec should be “royalty free”, not that it had to be non-patent-encumbered.

The W3C isn’t supporting H.264 or not supporting H.264. They simply support the VIDEO tag, and leave the format out of the discussion.

Of course, it would be much better to make this work like DVD or Blu-Ray… every browser must support all “primary” video types. And they tried this.. the FOSS people, Opera, and some others on the W3C committee tried to get Ogg Theora installed as a must-carry CODEC. It was blocked by folks like Microsoft and Apple.

No, it’s not all set in stone yet, from the W3C’s point of view. From Apple’s, from Microsoft’s, it pretty much is — they already have what they want.

This isn’t a simple preference, it’s a plan. Apple’s demand for and support of only H.264 is part of the same long-term vision behind their attack on Flash. Microsoft is going exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons… they have already announced no Flash support in IE9.

And it’s not really about Flash. Flash video is either VP6 or H.264… it’s not inherently slower than any other flavor of H.264. It is on the Mac, but that’s Apple’s fault for not have open video acceleration APIs.

But Flash doesn’t lock down H.264.. they could improve it in the future, and offer VP8 or something else. Microsoft and Apple want H.264 and only H.264, because that makes video work on smartphones and other devices, on existing video acceleration hardware. The main reason for this good video, in both cases, is making it acceptable for them to not support Flash. Apple only talks video in reference to Flash — they’re directing the discussion their way.

The other big reason is control over pay video, in both cases. Flash also supports DRM, DRM enables pay video. Apple wants to kick out Flash so that all pay video sales have to go through iTunes store… there’s no DRM for HTML5. Microsoft does likewise.. they’ll have Silverlight in their browser, in their devices, on the XBox, etc. They can sell you video via the Silverlight DRM, no need to pay Adobe. Sure, MS licenses Silverlight… but that’s part of their strategy to make it a viable proprietary web standard. On big push — you need it for the latest Netflix stuff.

So while Apple likes to call Adobe and flash proprietary, they’re not any more proprietary than H.264. Apple likes to say “open”, but what they really mean is closed. And closed to choice, too… they’re not simply content with the idea that Flash will fail on its own — which would certainly be the case if Apple was truthful about their claims of Flash horrors. They’re not content to allow Theora, even if the performance might be less.. they want complete control.

And there are the side benefits. Apple is so vested in H.264 anyway (they have always used it for iPod video), they don’t care about increased fees. But they’re happy to see the FOSS people, small companies like Opera, etc. react in a bad way and claim they’ll do Theora-only in their browsers. After all, that’s just as much a limit on my personal choices as H.264-only… they should stick to their beliefs and allow free software to succeed if it’s really better.

In all of this, only Google seems to be addressing the real need: mine. The end user is getting the squeeze here, and it’s likely to fragment the net, at least for awhile. Google’s supporting H.264, they’re supporting Theora, they’re even actively supporting Flash. As an end user, that’s really what I care about. As a video author, let me decide.

The other important thing about the VIDEO tag being format agnostic is that it’s format agnostic. Which means we’re not necessarily locked in to Theora or H.264 for the forseeable forever. Innovations are critical; PNG is a very useful graphic format, which wouldn’t exist if not for GIF being in the IMG tag first.

Specifically, VP8. I haven’t seen much VP8 yet, but On2 (and now Google) is claiming 40-60% better coding efficiency on low-bitrate video than H.264. If true, this is important. You and I could put VP8 videos online, but we’ll only get complaints. But if Google decides just to encode all top-quality stuff on YouTube in VP8, that’ll force a big change on the desktop, if not the handheld. So they do that, then release a version of Chrome that comes bundled with VP8. Good for Google, that’ll help their installed base for Chrome, and bundling that full CODEC, I’ll be able to create VP8 videos that same day in my favorite video NLE.

They’re big enough to push for something better. This would help the FOSS people, if VP8 is really open sourced at Google I/O soon, and really not patent entangled. I mean, just knowing how Apple and MS will hate that should be incentive enough at Google.

Unfortunately, the W3C is “pissing up a rope” on this one. All the big players sit on the board and pony up money for expensive meetings at exciting locations… the actual free & open guys don’t got much money. Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, etc are more than happy “selling users down the river” if it helps out another “buddy” in the club.

The W3C should know better, but after SVG and XHTML2 that got sandbagged in committee but the big companies. They’ve been using the W3C as a “bargaining chip” for way to long.. it took the WHATAG and the HTML5 group of actual WEB DEVELOPERS wanted to see to get them off their asses after the Big M basically ignored standards for 8 years!

Effectively though, if the W3C doesn’t allow h.264 Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight will just mow them over and there will be no more HTML5 at all. We’re at the point the proprietary fiefs are bigger than the W3C’s influence right now, so they take what they can get.

GIF had already become the de facto standard, and the patents were about to run out, by that time; and PNG clearly won on features (lossless 24-bit, smaller, no animation), and technical merit (smaller than GIF). By the time lawyers really got to their saber rattling, anyone who cared about their bandwidth had swapped to PNG for other reasons, with the patent issue just being good PR for it.

But the average user doesn’t know what “standards compliance” means, and if you said “get a standards compliant browser,” they wouldn’t have any idea what you’re talking about. The sites they want to visit will name specific browsers, so they’ll just use those.

And, in the case of the W3C standards, I think there’s only been a couple browsers that truly meet them, and both were written BY the W3C, and were very primitive and don’t work on many sites that aren’t standards compliant.

Every current browser out there has a “quirks mode” to render sites that aren’t standards compliant – even IE, now.

But the average user doesn’t know what “standards compliance” means, and if you said “get a standards compliant browser,” they wouldn’t have any idea what you’re talking about. The sites they want to visit will name specific browsers, so they’ll just use those.

According to that logic, the average user won’t even use those since he doesn’t even know what a browser is.

And, in the case of the W3C standards, I think there’s only been a couple browsers that truly meet them, and both were written BY the W3C, and were very primitive and don’t work on many sites that aren’t standards compliant.

That’s because a single browser whose maker had a strategy of undermining open standards tried was dominant. Now things are changing, and all browsers are getting better standards compliance all the time.

Every current browser out there has a “quirks mode” to render sites that aren’t standards compliant – even IE, now.

That’s to deal with legacy content. Browsers are becoming more standards compliants, and the same goes for sites.

Actually, the average person DOES have trouble knowing what a browser is. I’ve seen plenty of cases where I had to change the Firefox icon on someone’s desktop to say “Internet Explorer,” and use the blue E.

If Theora or VP8 is the real fit for HTML 5 codec, why don’t you guys write a open letter to Google to change the Video codec to Theora or VP8, then obviously Microsoft & Apple will have to support that in their browser. Start a Facebook voting to see the public opinion.

As long as Youtube videos are in H.264 I don’t see a reason why IE 9/safari should support other codecs. More codecs means for me, more bugs and security holes. There should be only one codec. No browsers are 100 % W3C compliant.

Or, Write a open letter to W3C to support Theora. Or Ask the Theora (Xiph.Org) to protect the developers or users from any patents law suite.

I don’t know whether I know full knowledge on this topic, but I keep see-ing this quite often in the OsNews.

The w3c is pretty much just a consortium of browser venders (there are other people who are a part of it, but the guys with the deep pockets are the ones that run the show) Complaining to them is virtually the same thing as complaining to MS and Apple.

The w3c is pretty much just a consortium of browser venders (there are other people who are a part of it, but the guys with the deep pockets are the ones that run the show) Complaining to them is virtually the same thing as complaining to MS and Apple.

I would expect that the web DEVELOPERS are the ones running the show – after all, they’re the ones that actually have to write code using the standards. The browser developers just have to write an engine that renders it properly, but otherwise they don’t have to actually write HTML5 code on a daily basis.

I would expect that the web DEVELOPERS are the ones running the show – after all, they’re the ones that actually have to write code using the standards.

Iâ€™m afraid youâ€™d be disappointed.

The browser developers just have to write an engine that renders it properly, but otherwise they don’t have to actually write HTML5 code on a daily basis.

Itâ€™s not that easy to write a rendering engine. I think itâ€™s very unhealthy to have the specification pretty much dictated by the browser makers, but it doesnâ€™t help matters to trivialize the effort it takes to build a rendering engine, and I donâ€™t blame the browser makers for trying to lessen their burden.

I had been thinking along the same lines: if the standard is that we use one codec, then the implementations will use that codec. However, what makes a standard a standard? That a committee decides on it? That there is an existing implementation?

Let’s look it up*:

standard – noun

: a pattern or model that is generally accepted

A pattern or model that is generally accepted. And that’s where the problem lies. A standard is completely meaningless without the support of the community. A formal standard is, in fact, an agreement within the community to do things a certain way.

Although I most certainly agree with your sentiment, I’m afraid complaining to the W3C will do little to change the use of H264 in HTML5. Not to say you shouldn’t, by the way; by all means, complain to anyone you can and make sure we’re heard.

I see only a few possibilities for turning the tide at this point in time, and all of them revolve around a single concept: incentive for the browser vendors to support something else. This incentive can come in several ways, such as a better codec (support development in Theora or VP8!), a Google deciding to recode all of YouTube to an alternative codec, or something else. But it’s the incentive that counts: without the incentive the browser vendors currently choosing H264-only won’t change and henceforth dictate H264, since no company wants to leave out a majority of the users on the web.

Wasn’t the need for certain codecs taken out of the specification deliberately because there was no point in putting things into the spec which were not true in the real world. I’m sure I read something like that from the editor of the spec (Ian?) a few months ago.

Just so you know, there was never any mention on how images should be encoded on the web but in the end that all sorted itself out eventually.

I don’t agree with the H.264 codec being in use but at the same time putting OGG Theora in the spec will make no deference because the vendors who want H.264 will just ignore that bit of the spec – simple as that.

Wasn’t the need for certain codecs taken out of the specification deliberately because there was no point in putting things into the spec which were not true in the real world. I’m sure I read something like that from the editor of the spec (Ian?) a few months ago. Just so you know, there was never any mention on how images should be encoded on the web but in the end that all sorted itself out eventually. I don’t agree with the H.264 codec being in use but at the same time putting OGG Theora in the spec will make no deference because the vendors who want H.264 will just ignore that bit of the spec – simple as that.

My take: I kind of agree with this. Big business is just going to use H.264 regardless of what W3C specifies and regardless of what is best for most of the people on the planet.

So, how should those who have the best interests of people at heart respond to this? Is railing at W3C going to be any more effective than railing at Microsoft and Apple? I regretfully conclude that maybe it won’t.

The best we might be able to hope for is to get browsers to play video via HTML5 via any codec. This way, people who want to provide royalty-free Theora (and maybe VP8 later on) video can do so, and those who want to succumb to MPEG LA control and pay up MPEG LA rip-off demands for money-for-jam can also do so.

So, in such a scenario, as seems likely to eventuate, what is the best way forward for FOSS software, and in the best interests of the vast majority of people?

It seems to me the best approach may be to adopt “if you can’t beat them, join them” and to provide FOSS users a legal way to run FOSS yet still participate in video delivered via HTML5/H264.

Fortunately, because H264 video decoding imposes high demands for the resources of client machines, most hardware that runs FOSS software today includes a GPU with video acceleration hardware built in.

The gstreamer-vaapi package provides a collection of plug-ins so that this media framework can take advantage of this video acceleration API that’s exposed either directly or via one of Splitted’s back-ends to most Linux graphics hardware. These plug-ins are fully open-source and support MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, VC-1, and WMV formats.

My bold.

Most graphics hardware also supports Gallium3D, and Linux drivers supporting this are just becoming available. g3dvl is a Gallium3D-based driver providing Generic GPU-Accelerated Video Decoding . g3dvl will bring hardware acceleration of video to Theora, and possibly VP8 as well.

Having paid for the hardware, any owner of a video card with a GPU with embedded H.264 decoder has an implied license to use that decoder, no matter what device they have bought and what OS their machine is running, and no matter what MPEG LA thinks.

Implied licenses often arise where the licensee has purchased a physical embodiment of some intellectual property belonging to the licensor.

This all means that even if they are successful in pushing H264 for web video, Microsoft and Apple still will not have a lock-in such that people will have to run their OSes in order to enjoy web video.

IMO, this may turn out to be the best possible outcome that we can hope for.

So, in such a scenario, as seems likely to eventuate, what is the best way forward for FOSS software, and in the best interests of the vast majority of people?

Deliver H.264 like all the other codecs have been delivered. Grey area and hosted oversees. Only to guarrantee access to H.264 for end users.

On top of that, people who support free(dom) codecs should try as much as possible to use Theora on the web. If Theora has enough mass, vendors will have to make some accomodations to make Theora viewable.

We don’t need 100% domination, we just need enough presence to make Theora (or another suitable free codec) non-neglectible. Having choice is preferable to a mono-culture.

Deliver H.264 like all the other codecs have been delivered. Grey area and hosted oversees. Only to guarrantee access to H.264 for end users.

I don’t know about that. I think open source implementing a patented, proprietary technology is asking for trouble. I think commercial OS vendors might have this kind of thing in mind for the future to try to convince legislators that open source needed to be banned.

Most end user’s hardware of recent times includes an embedded H.264 decoder. If one has already bought the hardware, then one has also bought a valid right to use it. Most users are already “licensed” for H.264 via the decoders embedded in their graphics hardware.

There is nothing at all stopping Mozilla from shipping an open source version of Firefox that uses a system’s hardware-embedded H.264 decoder to play HTML5/H264 video. Perfectly reasonable, violates no license terms at all.

Using this hardware decoder is perhaps not is not ideal, as it uses embedded, closed firmware, but it does give users hardware accelerated video, and it does mean that browser users can use ANY OS, not just Windows or OSX.

Currently, open source programs (such as Firefox) could utilise codecs embedded within graphics hardware to play a number of “restricted” formats:

If the point (as the author of our article makes a good case for) is that anyone can share,

We shouldn’t be talking about forbidding encumbered codecs.

Let apple and google use them.

They like them.

They have done the cost benefit analysis.

They can afford to defend themselves if sued. Fine.

Instead, I think the argument should be that you can optionally support whatever you want in your browser, but you MUST support some common denominator safe-to-use (legally) video container, such as theora.

When the conversation is framed that way the evil of MS and Apples refusal to support theora becomes clear.

Talk about it in terms of withholding access rather than continuing the bottomless and pointless discussion of the technical merits of one or the other codec.

That is exactly what I am suggesting, taking the argument to its logical conclusion. You said it better than I did. The W3C needs to take a more firm stance and make some royalty-free video standard a baseline for the HTML5 spec.

The folks at Apple have surely realized by now that they’re going to have to support Theora sooner or later, whether they like it or not. The amount of ogg video on the web is increasing rapidly, and with Android now outselling the iPhone, users are increasingly going to expect their phones to play those videos.

So how can Apple protect itself legally? First they need to identify possible patent holders, hence the “patent pool…to go after theora”. Apple puts all of the possible patent holders on notice and forces them to take a stand. Either they give up, or they sue over theora. If someone sues, and wins, that gets rid of the Theora problem. If they lose, then Apple can use Theora and not have to worry about those patents.

It’s a win-win for Apple. Either way, they get their legal problem resolved without having to be party to a lawsuit.

Your idea sounds good and righteous because we all hate patent-encumbered software, but it just doesn’t hold water. When you talk about “OS-agnostic” and “browser-agnostic” the operative word is agnostic. That should also include codecs. HTML5 should be codec-agnostic – that’s the only conclusion you can get from your starting points.

Trying to convince the W3C to lock out a codec because the hypocritical evil empires are trying to lock it in, is just as evil and hypocritical as the people you’re trying to fight, because it is “just as closed” as they are.

Why not let the code speak for itself? The reason Linux and Samba and other worthy OSS is so successful is that it is really really GOOD software. It works – and better and more reliably than the proprietary stuff. That’s the main problem with Theora vs H264. Face it, in terms of quality for bitrate (and that’s the holy grail of video compression – it affects everything. Download speed, storage space, you name it) Theora just isn’t anywhere as good as H264.

Trying to lock out H264 and legislate Theora in an HTML standard is like trying to outlaw the car and legislate the use of horses. Sorry – not going to fly.

What we need is a good open source video codec that is as good or better than H264. That’s the only way to win this one. Meritocracy. That’s how Linus does it…

Since you canâ€™t mod comments after posting in the threadâ€¦ +1 to this. You hit the nail right on the head. As someone who is extremely particular about video and audio quality, Iâ€™d hate it if everything were in Theora unless it were as good as or better than H.264, which it isnâ€™t at present.

The best way to fix the problem, as said here, is to create something better (without being harder to use), promote it and watch as people abandon H.264 of their own accord.

Set the minimum requirement to Ogg Theora, but allow others as well. Then all browsers have gauranteed compatibility, but companies can compete on quality and features as well, without breaking the spec.

Part of the problem is how do we prevent fragmentation because none of the browser makers agree on the spec. Microsoft could go back to it’s old ways and never be fully compatible. Firefox could be so concerned about free that it gets left out and completely overtaken by Chrome, and MS and Google fight it out with Apple ignoring them, since they say the future is all about apps, not browsers.

Another problem is that HTML 5 is on the very slow track. I saw something that said they won’t completely finish it until 2022??? They darn well better have it locked down by the end of 2011 or it’ll just get passed by or worse, users and developers will be stuck in hell where each browser is partially compliant, but each one in different areas. That’s one thing I don’t want to bring back from the good ‘ol days. It’s been nice having stability, so hopefully the new spec won’t bite off so much that it won’t ever finish chewing…

We can spend our time whining on and on to these commercial vendors, or we can cut to the chase and try to get the HTML5 spec fixed

OR you could spend your time making viable tools for handling them precious patent-free codecs. After a sensible minimm has been achieved, it doesn’t even matter which codec is better in the sense of picture quality, but uploading your video to a random website to convert it to theora, as has been suggested numerous times, is NOT part of any sensible workflow, therefore NOT a contestant AT ALL.

Thing is, just the codec is only maybe half of what it takes, but in the truest form of open source, we complete half of the work and expect everyone to hail it over ~100% complete alternatives. No matter that there are no plugins for major video editing software suites. “Because it’s open source, somebody surely will come along and write it, if they need to.” No, they will not. If You as the codec author/contributor/fanboy did not write them glue bits, NOBODY WILL. Instead of going into the software development business, just to use your fancy codec with imaginary advantages over the others, the video people will just use the codec that has support for their favourite tools (in this case, any h264 codec).

Fix THAT, before whining to various authorities that something should be “banned”, because it is “teh 3v1l”.

…would be something new and something brain dead. Next some ingenious people would suggest to remove Silverlight & Flash apps from HTML5, otherwise a HTML5 page/app serving Silverlight/Flash would not be a standard compliant page/app any longer?!

…this is called F/OSS fundamentalism! I’m also not a big fan of proprietary software and I actually maintain an OSS project myself (Apache License!) but enforcing the own ideology on other people is totalitaristic. If H.264 would be excluded from the standard (btw, a spec is always INCLUDING and never excluding) there would be more non-standard compliant HTML5 pages. Today almost the whole web is non-W3C compliant and who cares (btw all my major sites I’ve built are W3C compliant since 2000)? Even your browser doesn’t care at all.

All specs are excluding. It’s part of what it means to “specify”–to define. The specification for the web did not include the royalty-encumbered Gopher protocoll. Nor does HTML5 include Flash or Shockwave. I am only arguing that the “video” tag should not allow royalty-encumbered codecs. Not that they can’t be used via an “embed” tag or what have you….

Or as many people have suggested as a more liberal alternative, make OGG the bare-minimum requirement, with all other codecs unspecified…

The W3C lives in a world of its own. It creates a silly useless new “standard” every week that nobody wants, and then complains when browser makers never implement it.

Meanwhile, core internet technologies that the W3C is supposed to maintain (such as HTTP) get no love. Google may have implemented SPDY before anyone else, but much of it was written in a paper I read ten years ago and never even discussed at the W3C.

The W3C doesn’t even care about HTML 5 anyway; they’d prefer we used XHTML 3 with XML Events and Timed Text Specification. The browser makers are the ones who pushed HTML 5 (for good reason) and that’s who we need to complain to.

Regardless of which browser you thought was “better” (IE was at the time IMO), the whole internet was worse off after Microsoft killed off Netscape. Innovation stopped, viruses everywhere. Bad times. Even though the “better” browser won, the result was bad for everyone.

This is exactly the same. Video quality is really the least important part of what is going on here.

MS gave away its browser for free to kill Netscape who made money from selling browsers. In doing so they limited the people who to could make browsers to those who could pay for development with money from somewhere else (them, and recently Apple and Google) or people who work for free.

Since some people showed up who are crazy enough to work (mostly) for free (Mozilla and other Free Software projects), Microsoft is trying to limit the field even more by increasing the cost of development.

If you include H.264 in the standard then only those who can pay the licensing costs (Microsoft, Apple and Google) can build software that supports the standard.

Of course, for Microsoft and Apple that actually means paying themselves so its really only increasing the costs for their competitors (Google, Mozilla and Opera).

Not specifying the codec means that the companies will just use the websites they own to push the codec they own. That would mean that video will continue to be annoying for a long time, but its better than a standard that only a few can afford to follow.

The w3c should not anchor any codec in html5. When you start using standards to make politics, you have already lost the case.

All that the w3c should do, is to support only _free_ codecs. Free to use, to share. Unlike the mpeg-4 license. I have a Canon, too. And I will ask a layer, if Canon does infringe my rights, making profit out of my work. Perhaps they are liable for that and have to pay the license for a commercial use?

The open source community is in need for an association, which will fight against the mpeg patents. That is the way we can make an impact on the content industry. Make their patents worth nothing.

The open source community is in need for an association, which will fight against the mpeg patents. That is the way we can make an impact on the content industry. Make their patents worth nothing.

An association isn’t going help “fight against […] patents.” It’s simply going to paint a big bullseye on a single target. The truth is that you can’t fight patents. Nor should you have any expectation to prevail there, either. Why is there an expectation among OSS bigots that anything covered by the GNU license is worthy of protection — but then every other license deserves scorn? Do you drink your own hypocrisy in spoonfuls — or river-fuls? Because that’s what we’re talking about here. Don’t like mpeg patents? Develop something better. And then have your association patent it. Because fighting existing patents is not only a fool’s errand — it’s plain hypocritical.

2) If Google submits VP8 to the W3C – and is somehow able to clear every patent hurdle associated with it (the patent mind-field argument used against Theora, would apply to Google’s VP8 as well) – then there would be a viable alternative to h.264 that the W3C could support.

Then everyone would ignore VP8 and still use h.264, but at least it’d still be in the spec.

Personally, I’d like to see plugins used to fill in the Theora/Vorbis gap, either something that can run in Flash or Silverlight (or maybe even clunky old Java) – with a nice jQuery or other AJAXy kind of framework, that seamlessly simulates HTML5 video.

These days web developers target middleware (mootools, jQuery, etc.), not standards. Why not take advantage of that fact, and make HTML5 video with Theora much more feasible.

All this pseudo-darwinist talk of letting the best codec/tech/whatever win really misses the point.

i was thinking the same thing, but for another reason

everyone seems to be dealing at the matter with only users in mind – but, end user are not at stake here, since everyone already has the h264 codec installed on their OS (or can legally install it with little hassle), thus usable by any application, including the browser (or at least everyone except users of 0-cost linux distributions, that is a narrow minority – but in that case i ask, shall we really force on everyone something only the minority is affected by or cares for? )

what i’d agree is at stake is the ability for movie makers and publishers (including sites like youtube, that redistribute video content to users) to make and publish content without additional fees

but, in this perspective too, i think we should not restrict anyone’s ability to choose between better quality and running free of costs

Indeed. The W3C standards are optional. Following them is just a meaningless checkbox on a feature list, as far as users are concerned.

and, although this is an oft overlooked aspect, a coexistence of different standards creates fragmentation and aggravates the work of web developers

it’s not like desktop users will move en masse to a strict HTML-5 based web – or even html5 compliant browsers

more likely, one more generation of each major browsers will add to the lineup of browsers developers have to individually support (each browser has its own idiosynchrasies, and a developer has to cope with them specifically … i recall reading of someone writing something like 11 version of his site’s css in order to support all versions of netscape/mozilla/IE in existence, and seeing flash as a godsend to attain some unification )

end user are not at stake here, since everyone already has the h264 codec installed on their OS (or can legally install it with little hassle)

….what i’d agree is at stake is the ability for movie makers and publishers (including sites like youtube, that redistribute video content to users) to make and publish content without additional fees

You *almost* get it. This is about the read-write web and the ability of the “end users” to publish videos themselves, wherever and however they want, without having to fear repercussions.

but, in this perspective too, i think we should not restrict anyone’s ability to choose between better quality and running free of costs.

It’s not about restricting anyone’s abilities to use whatever they want. But that “whatever they want” should not be sanctioned in the specification documents. As many have already pointed out, this is a specification, not a contract, so it’s a given that the implementation is up for grabs. What I am saying is we need to ensure that at least one royalty-free codec is supported across all browsers. The W3C at least has the power to push the browser makers in the right direction by taking a firmer stance.

Don’t like other people’s choices, so try to force yours upon them. WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE?

Oh yeah, most of your die-hard FLOSS rhetoric. Here’s a tip, when people want to remove your choice in the name of freedom – does the term snake oil ring a bell?

Anything the W3C does for EXTERNAL FILES should be open to ANY file format – that’s the POINT. IMG doesn’t specify a file format, and blessed be for that given that jpeg, png and gif each have advantages in certain circumstances…

But with the entire mess being hijacked by the people who completely missed the point of STRICT, it’s no surprise both AUDIO and VIDEO are turning into total train wrecks…

So I say use ‘object’ – which was SUPPOSED to replace IMG, EMBED and APPLET. One simple tag to handle any format through plugins. END OF PROBLEM.

Here’s a tip for the HTML 5 whackos – MORE tags and attributes is not the answer for making stuff simpler, easier to use, or more consistent – but then god forbid anyone actually bother to write valid HTML Strict in the first damned place.

Anything the W3C does for EXTERNAL FILES should be open to ANY file format – that’s the POINT. IMG doesn’t specify a file format, and blessed be for that given that jpeg, png and gif each have advantages in certain circumstances…

So I say use ‘object’ – which was SUPPOSED to replace IMG, EMBED and APPLET. One simple tag to handle any format through plugins. END OF PROBLEM.

Yes, you’re absolutely right. Object should be used for embedding any kind of crap that you like.

However, you’re missing the point that the video tag provides a number of advantages. You can add programmatic control over the video, for instance. You can rely on the browser supporting the video *without* plugins. That is the idea. However, this whole idea is ruined if there is no cross-browser compatibility and no garantee on the ability of anyone to publish their own content.

You can blather on and on about the “free market”, but it’s all rhetoric and no substance. Without an organization that takes a firm stance on web standards, browser incompatibilities will just become more and more entrenched and web development will become more and more of a hell for the authors.

P.S. It seems that you have appointed yourself speaker for the the H.264 supporters. Thus, your getting so riled up here only serves to prove to me that I am thinking in the right direction–since you apparently sense that the interests you defend could be in danger.

However, you’re missing the point that the video tag provides a number of advantages. You can add programmatic control over the video, for instance.

So would it have killed them to just add that to OBJECT instead of making two new tags for no good reason?

You can rely on the browser supporting the video *without* plugins. That is the idea.

I don’t necessarily see that as the advantage everyone else seems to, since it allows the browser makers to dictate what formats will commonly be used – EITHER way. Honestly, I don’t consider what codec a video is built in to be ANY of the browsers business one way or the other.

Without an organization that takes a firm stance on web standards, browser incompatibilities will just become more and more entrenched and web development will become more and more of a hell for the authors.

Oddly, that’s exactly what I’m against – Which is why I’m AGAINST most of HTML5. It overcomplicates things through a bunch of unneccessary tags, bloats out the user agent with pointless crap like in-built codecs, etc, etc… I think the only thing I’m coming away from it with a liking for is the new form handling – and even that’s redundant since you’re going to end up having to verify the data server side anyways. (If anything nubes are going to rely on it forgetting server side checks entirely – why not they do it with javascript checks now!)

HTML5 undoes ALL the progress STRICT brought us – and even then most people can’t get off their lazy asses to learn STRICT or bother with separation of presentation from content, much less learn to use the most basic tags like TH, LEGEND, CAPTION, LABEL much less use a structurally valid heading order – no, they’ll abuse a definition list, toss in colspan, and use class=”header” instead. So naturally we need more tags for people to abuse – NOT.

P.S. It seems that you have appointed yourself speaker for the the H.264 supporters. Thus, your getting so riled up here only serves to prove to me that I am thinking in the right direction–since you apparently sense that the interests you defend could be in danger.

Then you’ve misinterpreted my meaning. While H.264 does seem to blow theora out of the water, I personally think the entire arguement is bullshit and that there should be NO default in ANY browser since I don’t want to have that bloated crap in memory in the background when I’m viewing a simple page of plaintext – like say… OSNews. For me it’s more of a “just what the hell is the point of HTML5 apart from making things needlessly more complex?”

As evidenced by the various pages I’ve seen people write using that convoluted train-wreck of a specification. It’s enough to make you go screaming back to HTML 3.2 without CSS. (ok, maybe not THAT bad, but you get the idea)

I think I’m going to be coding XHTML 1.0 STRICT for a long time to come.

A lot of articles lately have been focused on why Apple and Microsoft are the bad guys by supporting H.264 and not Theora. Well, yes, they are bad guys, but there really is not much point whining to them.

Apple and Microsoft are “bad guys” because they don’t support Theora? That’s just ridiculous. Theora is a sucker’s bet. h.264 provides demonstrably better quality at lower bit-rates, and only OSS devotees would conclude that being free is the only axis that matters when choosing a codec. Over-the-air television is “free”, too, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to get their content that way.

Apple and Microsoft are “bad guys” because they don’t support Theora? That’s just ridiculous. Theora is a sucker’s bet. h.264 provides demonstrably better quality at lower bit-rates, and only OSS devotees would conclude that being free is the only axis that matters when choosing a codec. Over-the-air television is “free”, too, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to get their content that way.

You are completely missing the point. No one is telling Apple or Microsoft that they are not allowed to use H.264. All I am arguing for is that they should *also* make their browsers able to play Theora via the video tag–otherwise independent content producers and open-source software vendors alike are screwed. Since, however, they aren’t listening to these needs of the end users and open-source software community, I would hope that the W3C would.